The Catholic church is saying such adoptions are contrary to Catholic teaching and untenable. The Church of England, in the shape of the two archbishops of Canterbury and York, has now joined in, saying that it is important to allow people personal conscience, and that government must be careful not to make it impossible for some religious people to be politicians.

These developments come against the backdrop of equality laws that ban discrimination against anyone because of their sexual orientation. These laws are due to come into force in April. The cabinet minister for this area of political life is Ruth Kelly, a Catholic who is also a member of Opus Dei. The Prime minister is married to a Catholic, and is clearly
quite sympathetic.

So it's a conundrum. Those who are antipathetic to religion are saying it's the churches holding government to ransom.

However, when it came to a vote on the issue of these regulations in Northern Ireland, the former Church of England bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, and I, a liberal rabbi, voted for the regulations outlawing discrimination against homosexuals, whilst the sitting bishops in the
House of Lords (we have 26 who sit in the House of Lords as of right) voted against the regulations. So it is all quite complicated and there is no uniform view, between religious people and between those who are agnostic or atheist.

In the US, which is a much more deeply evangelized country than the UK, despite the separation of church and state, it seems that would-be presidential and other political candidates need to be honest about their religious faith. However, I do not believe that means using religious language. Instead, it means telling the electorate where they stand
religiously, particularly on issues of conscience where they might vote according to their faith. But, beyond that, I would hope they would keep the debate to political, rather than personal faith issues.